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Skaer sees future applications in other joints -- "the hip, the shoulder, ankle, all of these suffer osteoarthritis" -- as well as in the cartilage discs between the bones in the spine.

It doesn't stop there, either:

"If you've got a technology that integrates very well with the body -- which allows cells to grow down into it -- then bones and joints certainly aren't the only tissues in the body that you could look to address."

In the long term, Skaer imagines silk platforms being used to patch up intestines, hernias, and muscles -- including in the heart.

There's even the suggestion that -- one day -- it could fix a severed spine:

"Is there the potential for nerve repair? Well, the chaps [research scientists] at Oxford University have certainly started looking at nerve repair as an interesting further application of this technology. And they've got some promising early results certainly."